Caption: Newport Beach, California. Should I have moved to the beach (with all that it is and isn’t) instead of to the White Wolf Mine? The crowded harbors with their mansions, yachts, and easy access to the polluted SoCal Pacific littorals sometimes present a more appealing lifestyle. Things are certainly more expensive than they are in rural Arizona. Sometimes not. Welcome to the Sunday Sermonette.
Sermonette Question:
Does the graphic below help you to feel redeemed?
An interview with Death (It/That) is presented to help you prepare in your quest to cheat it as part of the sermonette.
Science?
(Rand) After our experience (globally) with Dr. Fauci and that crew, we should approach new developments in bioscience carefully. Mirror life is a hypothetical form of life built from biomolecules with the opposite chirality—or molecular orientation—of those used by all known life on Earth. Although mirror life does not yet exist, scientific advances have produced mirror-image biomolecules and components that could serve as the building blocks of mirror organisms, and some laboratories have articulated the goal of constructing a viable mirror cell. Experts estimate that mirror life could become a reality within the next few decades. If that happens, then the consequences could be catastrophic for human health and natural ecosystems.
The building blocks of life—DNA, RNA, and proteins—each have a specific handedness. In nature, DNA and RNA are right-handed, while proteins are left-handed. But scientists can reverse that handedness and create mirror-image molecules in the lab. Mirror life would be built entirely from such molecules.
The reversed molecular orientation of mirror life could enable mirror bacteria to evade immune detection, cause fatal infections, resist degradation, avoid natural predators, and proliferate throughout natural ecosystems. Even a small initial population of mirror organisms could potentially spread widely, causing irreversible biological disruption.
Immune systems, predators, and most medicines are tuned to natural-handed biology. That means mirror bacteria could prove evasive, spreading through ecosystems and causing irreversible harm. The risks posed by mirror life must be prevented entirely, not merely mitigated. That’s because the first successful creation of mirror life could mark the point at which defense becomes impossible.
Bullet Points:
** Let’s get this sermonette started! Massachusetts has finally found an icon to rally behind. (Bee)
** ‘So many things can break a head; it’s quicker to list the things that can’t. A banana. A cuttlefish. One of those balloons party entertainers twist into sausage dogs. Front offside wheel of a Land Rover Defender, though. Definitely top half-dozen.’ – Clown Town — A quote for all of you who follow the Slow Horses (also a TV series – but of course the show lags way behind the books).
** Remember forgotten weapons – or don’t – up to you. Have you fired any of those, BRM?
** Is everyone building data centers? It feels like it. It’s the current gold rush.
** Did Google become evil or was it always evil? (h/t Claudio) It’s an interesing article, but the rabbit hole goes much deeper than that. “Stapleton cites a book by the former head of Google’s HR, Laszlo Bock, entitled Work Rules, as being particularly insightful about these dynamics. “He talks about how organizations can get out of control,” she said. “If you let managers have too much power over people, it’s corrupting, and so you have to constrain that power however you can, and that takes a strong HR function. But as my story shows, the managers had gotten control, and HR had no ability to rein them in.”
** Manning on Obama – and other topics. Your Sunday Sermonette. PTL.
** Consumer prices rose just 0.1% in July, easing the annual inflation rate to 3.4% and reshaping the size of next year’s cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients. New estimates released Wednesday put Social Security’s 2027 cost-of-living adjustment at 3.4% to 3.6%, down from forecasts as high as 4.7% in June. That would still be the biggest increase since 2023. The average retired worker collects $2,071 a month, so a 3.6% bump would add about $75 to each check. The official Social Security increase will be finalized on Oct. 14, after two more months of inflation data are in.
** On Writing – Bertolt Brecht kept a toy donkey on his writing desk with a sign around its neck: “I, too, must understand it,” which reminded him that if the donkey couldn’t follow the story, the audience couldn’t either. That’s sound advice. I have a bust of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, which is more of a war trophy than anything else. I ask myself WWFD (What would Felix do?) and then do the opposite. It’s worked so far. Question of the Day: Do you have/keep war trophies? Do you display them? What are they – what form do they take?
** For the past week my credit card has taken a thrashing as I have bought meals for myself and others. So how much work did my ancestors have to do to buy a chicken? Let’s put it in perspective.
** The Russian Black Sea Fleet – Claudio says, the money quote: Yet, the near complete failure of the BSF is stark, with the group being reduced from the most powerful surface force in the Black Sea to an anemic fleet contained within its main port, rarely venturing out for fear of losses, even as the vessels continue to take a beating. And to think we took them seriously in the Cold War.
(August 12th) The Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) had at least 4 surface combatants damaged in the attack, including two out of three of its most capable ships in the form of two Project 11356R Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, the Admiral Essen and the Admiral Makarov. These vessels became the most capable surface combatants within the Black Sea Fleet’s roster following the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in April of 2022.
At least 36 ships have been visually confirmed as sunk or disabled—roughly one-third of the initial fleet.
** AOC – in search of something she can do.
** The latest Democrat to announce his exodus from the party due to its takeover by socialist radicals is Julius Epstein. He’s the former Democratic chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee and a major figure in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. But he said his party has gone too far left and “lost its moral center.” Epstein announced that he will vote for Republican Mike Rogers for Senate in Michigan instead of Democrat/Communist and radical Muslim nominee Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, calling Rogers a “very practical middle-of-the-road normie guy who would’ve been very consistent with where the Democrats were during the Clinton administration.” Jews for radical Muslims = Steers for Meatpackers. It’s not unlike “Queer Marxists for Islam” – VDH picks up the narrative.
** Does your life suck? Maybe it’s because of YOU. Is there anything that you can do to fix the trajectory? SNL has some medical advice.
Identify the Aircraft
1
1931 built
2
A contemporary of #1 above – 218 built
3
68 built – 2 graphics to aid your ID
Parting Shot
End
Identify the Aircraft
1 – Vultee A-31 Vengeance
2 – Italian Breda Ba.65
3 – French Loire-Nieuport LN.40
Outstanding.
IDA:
1. Royal Australian Air Force Vultee A-31 Vengeance
2. Italian Breda Ba.65 “Nibbio”
3. French Loire-Nieuport LN.40 naval dive-bomber
Excellent
War trophies: Russian TT-33 manufactured in 1948. Also, a Jap canteen my Father brought back from Guadalcanal, a Hungarian .32 auto one of his brothers brought back from WWII and the Gott Mit Uns belt buckle an older brother brought back from WWI. Do the divorce papers from my first marriage count?
You have the beginnings of a museum, WWW.
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At one point, MRSLL accused me of setting up the Imperial War Museum in my den (beyond the ubiquitous I love me wall). So I took a step back and it was a little over the top. She said, “You’ve created a shrine to yourself.” Ouch. But she was right so I moved a few things around and put some stuff in the garage man cave.
Hey, if no one else will then it’s not wrong to promote one’s greatness. Don’t forget the centrally placed mirror.
Medieval work for chickens? The Hound had a different way…
https://youtu.be/KtCsmSMRiC0?is=P8EWLvaRX2Ygfell
“Any more words come pouring out your c*nt mouth, i’m going to have to eat every fucking chicken in this room” – Okay then help yourself.
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Was that a quote from one of George RR Martin’s books, or a movie adaptation?
At least the hound didn’t threaten to skull fuck him. Showing restraint. Very commendable.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Vultee A-31 Vengeance
2. Breda Ba.65
3. Loire-Nieuport LN.401
Excellent
“War trophies.” In ER, patients would at times require being restrained, sometimes with four-point leathers. And the means to release those restraints needed to be handy, so I bought my own Posey key. Still have it, along with my name tag from the early 80’s, reading “my full name, RN, CEN, CRS.” Working nights, I didn’t often cross paths with the dept. head, and wore that tag for over a year before she figured out what CRS meant and ordered me to lose it.
I’ve seen those flat blade keys for the leather restraints (not used on me for either love or punishment) but I didn’t know they had a special name for them. Good and understated trophy. It’s like one of those little handcuff keys, or a P-38 can opener on your ring but far cooler.
I always thought the Poseys were weak.
Clients never seemed to have much trouble getting out of them,
at the group home.
– Kle.
>In ER, patients would at times require being restrained, sometimes with four-point leathers
—
During residency I was on an ER rotation late one night and was assigned [1] a supposedly suicidal patient who was simultaneously drunk and hopped up on enough cocaine to give a horse a heart attack. The patient was a self-proclaimed “White supremacist” with a swastika tattooed on his neck. It was serving as the dot of the “i” in his “Lucifer” tattoo. He was a sad case, being short, rather podgy, and balding in his early 20’s. Brought himself to ER for suicidal ideation.
—
Anyway, he kept literally running around the ER and shouting at other patients and their families. I ended up having to have him put in 4-point leather restraints. This did not shut him up, as he started shout-cursing every person who walked by. There was discussion about whether to sedate him. But I am philosophically opposed to chemical restraints in general. “Hey, lemme talk to him alone for a minute. I think having a bunch of us here is agitating him more.”
ER Attending: “You’ve been talking to him for an hour. [Waiting for psych to come down to evaluate him for 72h hold.. -MC] What makes you think you can succeed now?”
“Just let me try.”
I shut the curtain and leaned in to talk quietly into my rather inferior “White supremacist’s” ear: “You’re in what we call 4-point restraints. Keep this bullshit up and I’ll make it 5-point restraints.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?!!”
I pointed to my neck and smiled at him.
Dude stares at me. I smile wider. He shuts up and turns his face away from me. Not another peep until the end of my shift. Then I had to go into the waiting room to talk to his grandmother, a sweet old lady who was the only family member to bother to show up. It was quite sad all around, really.
—
That sort of hostility is not my usual MO with patients, needless to say. But sometimes it’s the best (least bad) thing to do. I was also a bit annoyed by the Attending; see footnote.
[1] I said “assigned” because I was specifically picked by the Attending to take this patient. Going by the usual way of picking up patients (basically rotating through a list) did not happen here. The attending deliberately held this patient out of the rotation until I was up. He passed over several White residents to make sure I got this guy. He also told me, rather gleefully in my opinion, “So this patient is a racist. He called [nurse] Piali a ‘sand nigger’! She’s very upset. Just so you know. Have fun!” He also advised me “if he calls you anything you can punch him in the face!” (This Attending was known to be smart-mouthed and a bit of an asshole. But he was good at the doctoring knowledge.)
“I’m not gonna punch a patient. But I AM offended by his stupidity. It’s obvious that Piali is Indian and not Middle-Eastern.” The attending just smirked.
—
And for the record, podgy boy never used any sort of racial epithet on me, for some reason, though he laid into lots of other people. Weird. (I did seriously consider telling him about smart-assed attending’s background to see what would happen. But I left it alone. Assigning a chinaman to this guy, passing over multiple white residents, was clearly playing games. On both me and more importantly the patient. I would have been a real shit to counterplay, again using the patient. Who was not only a pathetic individual, deserving more pity than hatred, but also the damned Patient.)
Wow.
X10…the things you must see in the ER…or as Joe Kenda said in response to decades of homicide investigations: “Nothing good happens at 1:21 in the morning.”
HR: “…and that takes a strong HR function.”: Uh, no, it takes a proper CEO with visibility of the management team to keep them in check, not some self-important ‘personnel’ person who believes they are elevated above those doing the real work that generates corporate revenue. HR/Personnel people are overhead positions to take care of the incidentals (healthcare, inter-personnal problems, etc..)…an important but simpler function than, say, engineering, purchasing, sales, or manufacturing. And often woman who love to tell others what to do, which is no different than the Bulletpoint commentary about out of control managers.
***
Great data presentation on medieval v. now food cost…if MadMommie and his Communist/Marxist DSA cohorts had their way they’d have us go back to those times…seems that is already happening in cities where people have lost their collective minds.
***
Life Suckerage: At the point in life where I watch from a distance anymore, and it makes a massive difference in my mental state (low frustration). Determined no matter facts or a good argument, I can’t change anyone’s mind so leave them to their own devices (see MadMommie above…or AOC for that matter, both dangerous idiots). My mode for good life chi is employing – as best as feasible- “…to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,” (1 Thessalonians 4:11 ESV)…and no HR person required.
Most of the HR people I interacted with were black. They universally loved me.
🤣
You laugh but it’s 100% true. In one case, I proposed firing a black probationary employee and expected some pushback. HR Senior Manager said, “You right, Mr. LL, he’s just a nigger wit a job. A do-nothing low-life nigger.”
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When you consider that I hired the guy in the first place and liked him, the termination was kind of painful. He left me no choice.
Didn’t sugar coat it…geez. These days that guy would be in jail for hate speech and the fired employee would get his now vacant position.
I have a German saber from my dad (there was a PPK, but mom made him ditch it) and a Japanese sword from my uncle.
From my service I kept a unit patch and my stripes.
PPK or Mom? Bye Mom.
I have a sister whose husband has 150+ knives in his impressive collection. I asked her – the knives of you, which would go first. She said, “He’d drop me like a hot rock in a NY minute.”
Newport Beach would have been a very nice option had California’s implanted political class not wrecked the state, making living there untenable for Normals. Same with Colorado, or Vermont, or, or…
X2
If it took a day’s work to buy a chicken I’d expect them to have eaten a lot of peas.
Forgotten weapons. I have enjoyed many videos over on Ian’s channel. Not for nothing is he referred to as “The Gun Jesus”. I also enjoy Mark Novak. Here he is taking a deep dive into a Chauchat–
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXU6R-g78s
There were lots of Rev. Mannings in the neighborhoods I grew up in. Can’t beat a Costco chicken for $6 or an 8 piece Albertson’s dark for $7.
I like the Costco option personally.
$5 lost leader (maybe)…we get a few meals out of a family-sized rotisserie bird. What other savory thing you gonna snack on at midnight this tasty?
Ehrfurht Luger 1916 4″ – belonged to Opa’s elder brother
Debs dad brought back a huge Nazi flag ,,cover a king size bed . It was brand new still smell die in it ,and a 15 long Nazi banner ,got both at Berchtesgaden . Also a cup and saucer for his mother. A Walther he accepted from a German officer when he surrendered himself and a group of soldiers outside of Berlin. They had walked around Berlin to reach the allies after watching the Russians shoot anyone who surrendered . He met the officer in Buenas Arias 15 years later,,lots more to that story.
Quite a story.
Sermonette graphic – looks like a lot of itching ears being tickled.
Pastor Alice Cooper came to mind, at least visually…Cooper IS a Christian saved by grace.
I’ve heard Cooper tell of his experiences, and they are compelling. Didn’t he bite the head off a chicken during a concert, or was that Ozzie?
Ozzie
I thought it was a bat?
“Science?”
I find the last two paragraphs somewhat questionable/irksome, though an excellent starting point for a very long, somewhat possibly boring/somewhat possibly sophomoric discussion of: “What is Life?” which a bunch of my fraternity (ΑΧΣ – a chemistry fraternity) brothers had back ~1960 when we started taking courses in Organic Chem that introduced us to the mysteries of chirality with 2-Chlorobutane.
To answer the question of “Of which chirality is G-d?” I would have to consider that the anamacula of this planet since the beginning of time have become used to feeding upon/reproducing with others of their own chirality. Just how long-lived could an organism be having arisen/having been created through a somewhat though analogous (employed in its wildest sense) means? It would probably die rather rapidly, not being able to properly feed/digest.
Service momentous. Still have my dog tags (pre SSN), unit badges, and Expert Rifleman Badge somewhere in a dresser drawer. Honorable Discharge framed and hung among the family pictures.
Same here. My maternal grandfather’s garrison cap with 2Lt. “coffin lid” style bar still pinned in place. My father’s summer weight flying coveralls. My own unit crest, subdued pin-on sergeant stripes, and dog tags on their chain along with my P-38. Don’t have anything I would consider a war trophy.
It’s good to put them up.
Forgot still have the SP5 baseball cap pin.
I built satellite dishes, teleports, dial central office telephone centers, and data centers. I retired in 2015. I never saw the need for water in any data center. Only in the largest data centers required big power.
Why wouldn’t you use a better coolant? Cost?
A Kansas data center owner – looked fairly nondescript, no power suit – was adamant in his testimony to some city council that in 15 years none of his data centers used one ounce of water for cooling and all the hullabaloo being presented was media propaganda in order to get people riled up.
Chinese and US policy research organizations issued a joint statement calling for “national and international frameworks to guard against the risks posed by mirror life, reaffirming the shared view that such organisms should never be created.
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Ice-9 anyone?
Having watched W. Chinese state-sponsored research over the past decade (or more), my feeling is that any jointly developed framework will be employed in the opposite direction almost immediately; it’s almost as though the Chinese read English as though it were Hebrew.
X2
I remember our conversation at Hodads and the walk down to the beach at Ocean Beach. Nice view, but wouldn’t live there on a bet!
Yes, I did say that. And I didn’t live there.
Yes, I’ve handled a Chauchat, and fired it. The French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti had one stashed away in the deepest, darkest corner of the armory, long forgotten, complete with a few magazines, ammo, etc. I happened to be visiting (purely social, you understand) when the armorer discovered it. Much excitement ensued, particularly when the markings on the ammo crate revealed it had been manufactured in 1915! Of course, they had to take it straight to the range (after a little cleaning and oiling, which was complicated by the fact that no-one knew anything about assembly or disassembly, and whoever left it there didn’t leave a manual with it). The ammo, perhaps surprisingly, worked about 80% of the time (age and heat having taken their toll). They let me try a few shots. Standing, recoil and poor ergonomics made it almost unmanageable. Prone, using the bipod, it proved surprisingly accurate at medium range. However, one look at the magazine and one understood why it was such an execrable design for trench warfare. Mud and other contaminants could enter the magazine freely through the open side panels, and work their way in among the cartridges. Guaranteed jamming, right there…
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Back in South Africa, I had a few souvenirs of my time in uniform (as one does). I couldn’t bring most of them with me when I emigrated to the USA, because the airline would have had kittens if they’d been detected before departure, and US Customs would have had even more kittens when I tried to take them through the arrivals process. I was told that unless I was on an immigrant visa (which I wasn’t – I started with a simple work visa), I couldn’t bring firearms into the USA or own or use any while I was here. Oh, well… some of my friends benefited from my little collection. The one I most regret was the Makarov with a red star inset into the grips, and a very polished brown leather holster. I got it from a senior Cuban officer who tried to drive through a roadblock somewhere in Angola. Silly, that. Afterwards, he didn’t need it any more. I also had a few rounds (just a few, you understand) of 7.62 Russian (short and long), 9mm. Makarov, and a few 14.5x114mm. rounds taken from the belt of a ZPU-2 heavy anti-aircraft machine-gun, which I borrowed from a few Angolan soldiers (who no longer needed it, you might say) to shoot at a passing MiG-17. (I missed.)
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I do have a Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife that my father brought back from Italy during World War II. He was Royal Air Force, not Army, but found himself in a position to help one of the irregular commando units from the Western Desert campaign, who were now wreaking havoc in Italy among the retreating Germans. (I seem to recall it was Popski’s Private Army, which was quite famous in its own right at the time.) In return for his assistance, one of the troop handed him the knife as a “thank you”. The sheath is so worn that it’s almost useless, but the knife is still quite serviceable. Interestingly, it’s blued rather than left shiny, like most knives. Dad told me once that was to make it more useful at night, because the blade would not reflect light. I wonder how many people this knife assisted to get to a better world? I’m getting old, and have no family to whom to leave it. I’ll have to find a worthwhile home for it somewhere.
Thanks, BRM – I have some USN Specwar blades made of titanium that are naturally mud colored.
Besides my Oma’s Mothers cross in bronze( not really a war trophy per se) i have a Dayak Mandau from Borneo that was given to my father by a co worker at IBM who served in the British military during WW2 back in the 70s. Very cool sword for sure.
War Trophies: How did LL capture or earn a bust of Felix? I can’t complain because I don’t have a day named after me!
*****
My war trophies are all put away except my diploma and a photograph with an autopen signature by President Reagan. Life is an ever flowing stream and there’s no going back. So, I don’t sweat it and enjoy whatever comes my way.
*****
The Black Sea Fleet: Russia is not what the Soviet Union was before the mid-70s. I kept a comic from the Cold War with three Soviet generals having drinks in Paris. Two had muddy boots placed on top of the table and the third general’s uniform was spotless. The first two were asking the third general: So general, how was the air war?
*****
Off topic: Most of my books are put away, but one was the early WW II story of a fleet carrier that I remember as the Lexington. Her assignment was to confuse the Japanese into thinking there were more carriers in the Pacific than we really had by trolling near the Solomons. They were out long enough to where everyone was eating block meat (Spam) until they resupplied. The resupply was quick 24-48 hours and back to sea for the Battle of the Coral Sea. My memory is short on this but I seem to remember they were out until they were almost out of food.
-It came to mind because of the bad press about the USS Lincoln, and the many comments by blue jackets of all types, regardless of the ship, who served from the 50s on about long deployments, no fresh fruit or vegetables and such, but that they were US Navy tough.
-Both HMS Defiant and Commander Salamander write about the lack of support ships and supply depots being slowly eliminated for decades.
-My father in law was on Cabot through the war but they were not out as long as the fleet carriers because of their limitations.
*****
LL if you have any contacts in surface warfare with news, either good or bad, it would be of interest.
My sources indicate that the rotations of ships on deployment (along with victualing) are proceeding as expected. Long deployments are hard on crews, but aircraft carriers are always well supplied and replenished. The DDGs likewise are replenished adequately by Navy standards. I’ve always viewed sea tours such as those along the lines of being in prison. You’re locked in a metal box with a strict schedule, and you don’t get much in the way of “strolling on the promenade deck.” I don’t think that the strike tempos are particularly challenging when compared to previous wars. Air wings have their own dynamics. The USMC in ARGs is always pensive and wanting to take a beach. It’s in their nature, and being cooped up is uncomfortable (see prison above). I’m sure that the SSN rotation is occurring, with the standard of fresh food giving way to canned and freeze-dried food as the deployment unfolds. It’s nowhere near the way it was during WW2 or even Vietnam, but expectations are always different. The USAF people on a base always have it easier because of the nature of the environment, IMHO. It’s easier for them to rotate in and out than it is for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Yes, Google was always evil. Obviously so.
*
Back from my perambulations, now.
– Kle.
Welcome back, Kle.
Mirror Life…..Our version of Ice-9.
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“War Trophies?” I have some trinkets I’ve collected through the years. They’re in the basement workshop.